Control (October 18, 2007)

I’m not really a fan of biopics, and I’m not really a fan of tortured rock groups with a cult following. I’m not sure if this enmity is merely doubled when the two are combined. It might be squared. I’ve seen far too many “Behind the Music”s to have much empathy for these artists, whose self destruction tends to be their own doing and artistic merit questionable from the start. And, without empathy for the lead character, whose choice it was to put him self in such a central, public position in the first place, the whole structure crumbles.

But, while depressing as all hell, Control steers clear of this simple formula to actual character analysis. While not exactly sympathetic, it portrays Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, as an artist tortured by things he cannot control: his epilepsy, other people, his own desires, and needs, and the responsibility that comes with all those things. He is a deeply unhappy character, and when his unhappiness resonates with others in his form of music, he cannot keep up under the accompanying pressure – even though one would assume he wanted that recognition from the start. If he didn’t, would he not have just kept his poetry to himself and led one of countless lives of quiet desperation? It all becomes too much – to a large part because he cannot say no to anybody.

After the film, my friend commented that the right thing for Ian to do, instead of killing himself, would have been to leave both his wife and girlfriend, and start anew. But so much of his soul was tied up in both of these women, that I wonder if that would have been just a delay to an almost inevitable suicide, as his epilepsy progressed, as he found more popularity, as the fame grew…

So, he couldn’t deal with the edifice he built for himself, and the accompanying pressures that mount when things become serious. When his wife has a baby. When the band gets a tour in the US. But the thing about those kinds of pressures and responsibilities is that I don’t think you EVER realize what you are getting into in situations like that. The permanence. How very long life actually can be, and how much a lot of things can suck. But just because you don’t realize it at the time doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing; I suppose it’s how you take it, and if you like your life as it changes. Or you convince yourself you like it. Either way. Change can be scary and take you out of your comfort zone, but isn’t that what it’s supposed to do? And you adjust accordingly. I suppose that assumes one is mentally stable, though.

Interesting side note: the movie was based on a book and produced by Ian Curtis’ estranged wife. I found her character in the film to be a complete twat. If this is what the woman was actually like, no wonder he regretted his marriage. But I wonder how much of the Ian Curtis character would have actually been him, and how much would have been her 25-years-post-mortem imaginations.